HOWIE CARR SUSPENDED BY WRKO

WRKO has suspended Howie Carr for one week, reportedly without pay costing him an estimated $17,000, because of his repeated attacks and mockery of the station and its management, according to the Boston Globe.

Julie Kahn, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Boston, which owns the station, said Carr’s behavior toward his employer has become increasingly caustic and intolerable.

“His behavior and his anger at the company is unacceptable because he denigrates the company, the medium, the station, the signal, and he’s a highly, highly, highly paid employee,’’ she said.

Carr tried to get out of his $1 million contract in 2007 to go over the a Boston FM station. In the suit he alleged "indentured servitude." Repeatedly on his show, when there are technical glitches he utters the phrase, "Entercom happens" or says, "Someday, I'll be on a real radio station."

On Friday's show, he merely told callers, "I won't be here next week." He didn't discuss the reason, leaving the nebulous impression that he was heading to his Florida second home for another vacation.

Last month, WRKO dropped the noon-3 p.m. broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show. Carr spent several days raging on air that loss of the high ratings from the Limbaugh lead-in was hurting his listenership.

He's skilled and works hard to be entertaining. And doing segments that take a break from the issues is an innovation, near as I can tell. Hannity (for instance) never talks about the ordinary things in life. And when did he even make an effort to give a laugh to his listeners?

Viking: WRKO didn't lose Limbaugh, they chose to give up the show when the contract came upo for renewal! A weaker signal Boston AM picked him up.

A friend in Boston media tells me WRKO is being obstinate that it will not drop Carr's show as a show of spite for his lawsuit. Instead, they intend to make him work his contract but go out of their way to make life miserable for him. In the meantime, it keeps him off a competitor.

Entercom has unusual ways of doing business. For a short time, their Boston sports talk programming WEEI was heard in Maine and was entertaining. It suddenly disappeared from the Blueberry Broadcasting stations up here. Reportedly, they reneged on their contractural terms so Blueberry dropped them and replaced them with Imus, Dan Patrick and Fox Sports Net. As I heard the story, the contract allowed Blueberry a certain allocation of local ad minutes per hour. When another Boston station changed to ESPN all sports programming, Entercom -- without renegotiating with Blueberry -- changed its WEEI format and reduced the number of local ad breaks for affiliates. So, Blueberry had no choice but to drop them for alleged breach of contract.

So, one can imagine the internal crap which Carr is exposed to when he is at the station.

The Rush situation in Boston is a bit more complicated than you describe. Clear Channel owns Rush and the Boston station he is now on. They needed to get Boston clearances for Glenn Beck and other shows they own. They decided to do it by changing the format of the station they owned. If they were going to start a Boston station, it made sense to have Rush. So when the contract came up, they asked WRKO for a huge increase to take him. The station said no.

I wondered how long it would be before he got suspended by his employer though. He really lets WRKO have it with both barrels every chance he gets.

Boy , does he ever... I thought this would happen long before now..He always put's down the Red Sox Pre game show that prempts him during his last hour as well and tells folks to tune to a different station to keep hearing him..LOL...I would not be surprised if RKO lets him out his contract and drops him..Howie is about to cash in big time..LOL..

I love Howie, but I think he's been rather unprofessional about the whole thing. He signed a contract years ago that gave WRKO first refusal come renewal time. He tried to jump to another station and WRKO prevailed due to the previous agreement. Howie got a very nice boost in salary as a result - one wonders why he didn't insist on some technical improvements as part of the deal. As for programming shifts - well, much as many in Boston love Howie, I daresay MORE in Boston love listening to Red Sox games.

Bottom line is that I really can't fault WRKO for this decision. I'm a little surprised they put up with it for this long.

One wonders if Howie isn't doing this just to they'll fire him - and if so, what kind of non-compete clause is in the new contract (as in, how long before he could jump to another station). One hopes he's read the current contract more closely than he did the last one.